With four albums in seven years, two of them gold; 10 Top-10 singles, two of them No.1 and one gold; multiple awards, for best single, video and live group; and close to 800 live shows under its belt, including support slots for the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, Guns N' Roses, Nickelback and KISS, the Canadian rock band never rests.

The Trews - comprised of lead vocalist Colin MacDonald; his brother, guitarist John-Angus MacDonald; cousin, drummer Sean Dalton, and long-time friend, bassist Jack Syperek - keep pushing themselves in the studio and onstage, always ready to give an intuitive and intense rock'n'roll show of songs that have killer hooks, such as "Hold Me In Your Arms" from the band's latest studio album, No Time For Later. The song, whose video rose to No.1 on national television station MuchMusic, achieved gold status for sales of 20,000-plus digital downloads. The U.S. Indie Music Awards declared it 2009's Best Hard Rock Song.

"If you want to keep making records that are at all interesting or fun to listen to, you gotta go places," says John-Angus of how the band steadily increases its fanbase year to year, album to album.

And go places they have. Following No Time For Later, The Trews decided to do something totally different - an acoustic CD/DVD. Recorded at Toronto's Glenn Gould Theatre over two days, Friends And Total Strangers reinvents their classic hits and intersperses some unreleased rarities and new songs. Released in October 2009, they backed it up with a 30-date sold-out acoustic tour and the DVD was just nominated for a coveted JUNO Award (Canada's Grammy's), which is announced mid April.

"I just love acoustic sets," says Sean. "If we were at a house party at three in the morning, we'd be doing same. It's nice to sit around and sing the songs and hear them in a different light. It makes you a better musician too. You have to try harder, stay in tune, be more articulate."

The strong musicianship has been built over years of working together with the original lineup. They formed as One I'd Trouser in 1997 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, when the four were still in high school, and released a self-titled EP. The guys then moved to the Niagara region of Ontario and truncated the band name to Trouser. In 2002, they signed with Bumstead Records and were about to release a second EP, when they received a cease and desist over the name. Thus came their final moniker change to The Trews.

In 2003, they released their debut full-length, House of Ill Fame, which yielded multiple hit singles, such as "Not Ready To Go" and "Tired of Waiting." Moving next to Toronto, which is now their home base, the follow-up album, 2005's Den of Thieves, was produced by Jack Douglas (Lennon/Yoko, Aerosmith), and again spawned several singles, including "So She's Leaving."

Perennially recognized for their creative output, The Trews are 5x JUNO Award nominees, were nominated for Best New Band by SPIN.com and Best New Band by Classic Rock magazine in the UK. They also won Hard/Rock/Metal Song of the year at the U.S. Independent Music Awards. Although 2010 has only just kicked off, their song "Sing Your Heart Out" from Friends And Total Strangers was nominated for Best AAA/Alternative Song at the 2010 U.S. International Acoustic Music Awards and the band is up for Favourite Live Artist Group at the 2010 Independent Music Awards in March.

Meanwhile, this tireless band is hard at work writing for their next album, due for release in 2011, and true to character, they will hit the road this fall to do what they do best - play live.

hey i went ur guys concert in edmonton with sam robertsand i ahve to say it rocked. i had such an amazing time and i love u guys so much. ur new cd totally kicks ass. i love it so much. keep on rockin. Sep 04